As the film industry knows, opening weekend has always been the biggest indicator of the relative success or failure of a film’s marketing. Quite recently, however, the concept of “weekend box office” has shrunk to just one day, Friday. The culprit? Twitter. It sounds nightmarish and, to those who haven’t immersed themselves in the expermient, rather unbelievable, but, quite like premature ejaculation, this phenomenon is proving itself true.

In fact, I can’t think of a single industry that’s been so dramatically affected by the exponential rise of Twitter. Like it or not, Hollywood’s studios (along with producers, directors, and screenwriters) will have to adapt. Of course, there’s already a ton of them using Twitter, but there are many more who are consciously (not to mention stubbornly) ignoring this so-called “trend” and preferring instead to merely concentrate on their “art.” Well mates, the days of “the film director as enigma” are over, and they’d best figure out how to harness this evolution (or, as some might believe, devolution) of technology.

This summer, Twitter users have witnessed an avalanche of positive buzz that boosted the opening weekends of two films, The Hangover ($45 mill) and Up ($68 mill), far above studio expectations. Contrast those with the opening weekends of Land of the Lost ($18.8 mill) and Year One ($19 mill), both of which were projected to rake in the dough but suffered from horrible word of mouth that, naturally, spreads instantaneously on Twitter. (Of course, Transformers 2 is the slo-mo cleavage-populated exception to this fledgling rule, but, barring Megan Fox on the cutting room floor, nothing was ever gonna stop that one.) It’s a grave new world but a commonsensical one at that:

Instant messaging and Facebook has been around for some time, driving a social network effect on word of mouth on movies.

But the burgeoning popularity of Twitter has created an exponential effect on the movement, which one marketing expert — termed “marketing velocity” — that can especially hurt a movie that audiences don’t like.

“If you’re tweeting and people are catching that live and they’re out at drinks and were planning on seeing the movie tomorrow — that hurts,” said Gordon Paddison, a marketing consultant who specializes in technological change.

The speed of Twitter “has a direct effect on marketing velocity changes, which is not something people used to put in the mix,” he continued. “Twitter is real time. It’s like waves cresting on the shore. You need to be mindful of how word of mouth breaks, and as it starts to break, to be able to shape it, respond to it, or take advantage of it.”

Somewhat mindless surfer analogies aside, Twitter certainly complicates the already fickle waters of cinema. Early casualties will pave the way for upcoming films, and I can only hope the film industry will adapt quickly after what occurred over this past weekend. Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest brainchild, Bruno — which was said to be “the great test” of Twitter’s impact — was met with results that weren’t exactly pretty. While Universal had hoped for a $50 million opener, Bruno took in $30.4 million instead. Lemme tell ya, the overall buzz on Twitter for this film was not good.

More Speculation: Box-Office Weekend: Br